Whether you’re a small business owner, freelancer, or developer, having a strong WordPress content strategy is crucial for establishing your place in the online ecosystem, reaching and engaging your target audience. Only, where do you begin with creating one?

This article will cover all the tips and actionable steps to help you create a compelling WordPress content strategy. The one that will align with your business and content marketing goals, reach the right people, and drive results. Not to mention, build a solid, strong online presence. So, let’s dive in!

6 main Steps of WordPress content strategy

To fully understand and develop a successful content strategy, you need to learn the basics – the 6 main steps every content strategy needs to have, be it for WordPress or not. Said steps are:

·       Defining your target audience

·       Conducting proper keyword research

·       Defining a content plan

·       Creating relevant and useful content

·       Specifying the right content distribution

·       Measuring and analyzing results

Following these steps will ensure you have a better understanding of how to define your WordPress content strategy and create compelling blog posts and pages that align with your content marketing goals. So, let’s dive in!

I.                 Defining a target audience

When it comes to creating compelling WordPress blog content, knowing your target audience is the number one rule. Understanding who you’re creating content for and what challenges they face is crucial for creating content that resonates and drives engagement. Before diving into content creation, take the time to define your target audience. Ask yourself who you’re creating content for and what issues or concerns they have. Failing to answer these questions could result in your content missing the mark and failing to connect with your desired audience. Not to mention drive results and get your business out there.

Here are some actionable tips to help you define your target audience and create content that speaks to their needs:

• Create Buyer Personas: A buyer persona is a detailed description of your ideal customer, including demographic information like age, gender, income level, job title, interests, and pain points. Creating buyer personas can help you tailor your content to your target audience’s specific needs and interests.

• Identify Audience’s Pain Points and Interests: By researching your target audience, you can determine the challenges they face and the topics they’re interested in, allowing you to create valuable content that solves their problems and is of use.

• Consider Audience Demographics: It’s important to consider the demographics of your target audience when creating content. For instance, visual and interactive content may be more effective if your audience is primarily millennials. On the other hand, older audiences may prefer longer-form, in-depth content.

II.               Keyword research

Keyword research helps you understand what your target audience is searching for online. Moreover, it’s one of the foundations for a good WordPress content strategy. Knowing this, you’ll be able to create content that matches their search intent and provide useful information while offering yourself/your service or product as an ideal solution. Use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs or Semrush to identify your audience’s keywords to find information related to your industry.

Furthermore, here are some actionable tips for conducting keyword research:

·        Identify Long-Tail Keywords: Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific keyword phrases that people use when they’re closer to making a purchase. These keywords can be easier to rank for and can drive more targeted traffic to your website. Use keyword research tools to identify relevant long-tail keywords for your content.

·        Analyze Competitor Keywords: Analyzing the keywords your competitors are targeting can help you identify gaps in your own content and find opportunities to rank higher in search engine results pages. Use tools like SEMrush to analyze your competitors’ keywords to see what you can do better to outrank them.

III.             Creating a content plan for your WordPress content strategy

Develop a content plan based on your target audience, goals, and keyword research. This plan should outline the topics you want to cover, the format of the content (e.g., blog posts, videos, infographics), and the channels you will use to distribute your content (e.g., social media, email marketing), which we’ll explain more in the following steps.

Actionable tips:

1.     Performing a content audit is an essential step in understanding your existing content’s strengths and weaknesses and identifying gaps in your content strategy. By documenting your findings, including content type, topic, format, and performance metrics, you can optimize your existing content and prepare for new content creation. With WordPress plugins like Jetpack or Monster Insights, it’s quick and easy to get relevant data for your content audit.

2.     Using multimedia content: Use different content types such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, and more to keep your audience engaged and attract different types of visitors.

3.     Aligning your content to the buyer’s journey is a step you don’t want to skip. The buyer’s journey is the process potential customers go through when considering a purchase. By creating content that addresses the different stages of the buyer’s journey, you can better guide your audience toward a purchase and improve conversion rates.

4.     Setting content themes: Setting content themes or pillars can help you maintain a consistent message and tie your content together. For example, if you are a WordPress developer or a freelancer, your themes might be “WordPress basics,” “WordPress development,” and “WordPress optimization.” This will help you create a cohesive message across all of your content and establish yourself as an authority in your niche.

5.     Creating a content calendar: A content calendar is a schedule of your content themes/pillars (and topics within each of them), formats, and publishing dates. This will help you plan ahead and ensure that you are consistently producing high-quality content. You can easily create one using one of recommended WordPress editorial calendar plugins, such as Editorial calendar, CoSchedule or  SchedulePress.

In addition to these tips, here are some more useful suggestions when developing a content plan:

·        Keep your target audience in mind at all times. It’s not about you, it’s about them, so make sure your content addresses their needs, interests, and pain points.

·        Set specific goals for each piece of content. Do you want to generate leads, increase engagement or get more traffic? Make sure each piece of content has a clear purpose aligned with it.

·        Be consistent. Stick to a regular publishing schedule to establish a rhythm and build momentum. This will help you maintain audience engagement and ensure that your content is fresh and relevant.

IV.            Content creation

Ok, so you know who your target audience is, you’ve done keyword research and created a content plan. It’s time to set things in motion with just the right content which is… the content your audience needs, wants, and is searching for. In the example of you as a WordPress developer or a freelancer, this can be anything from industry news and trends to case studies, how-to guides, WordPress plugins, and Theme Reviews. On the other hand, if you’re a small business, you could create content such as blog posts that address your target audience’s pain points and interests, case studies that showcase transformation for your clients, and success stories of your clients and/or customers, infographics that provide useful information in a more engaging way.

Actionable tips:

·       Be sure to follow SEO rules and best practices. From using a compelling headline, including main and similar keywords, providing the most relevant and accurate information to your target audience formatted in a way that both people and search engines love will ensure your content is the result Google shows and people click on. Not sure how to do that? Use plugins like Yoast SEO, RankMath, or All in One SEO to help you cover all that.

·       Use clear and concise language your target audience understands. Don’t overwhelm them with technical terms or jargon they don’t understand. When in doubt, they will opt out and you’ll lose the chance to convert them into your clients or customers.

·       Don’t shy away from multimedia. Use visuals, audio, and video content to enhance your written message explain in more detail or improve engagement. Make sure to provide content that people need and search for in a format they feel comfortable engaging with.

V.              Content distribution and promotion

Creating great content is only half the battle – you also need to distribute and promote it effectively to get it in front of your target audience. Here are some actionable tips for content distribution and promotion of your WordPress content:

1. Share on Social Media: Share your content on your social media channels, because even search engines need support. Additionally, provide your visitors a chance to do the same without leaving your post or Page by installing a Social Media plugin, one of many you can find for free in the WordPress plugin repository. You can even use some of them as a scheduling tool to automate your social media posts and ensure your content gets shared regularly.

2. Email Marketing: Use email marketing to promote your content to your email subscribers. Create a newsletter that features your latest blog posts, or send out dedicated emails promoting specific pieces of content. Just make sure to start grabbing their emails from the start and with the help of – of course – WordPress subscription plugins, such as MailPoet, Forminator, Newsletter, and more.

3. Repurpose Your Content: Repurpose your content into different formats such as videos, podcasts, or infographics. This can help to reach a wider audience and provide value in different formats.

4. Consider paid promotion and/or influencer outreach: A type of distribution that helps you reach your audience and spread your messages quicker – but for a price.

Using these distribution and promotion strategies, you can ensure that your content gets in front of your target audience and helps you achieve your business goals.

VI.            Measuring and analyzing the results of your WordPress content strategy

The ultimate step in creating a successful WordPress content strategy. Why? Without it, you won’t know what works and what fails and all your time and effort will be based on a guess. Or a hypothesis. To set things the right way, these are the needed steps to follow:

1. Set Goals and KPIs: Define your goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) for your content strategy. This usually includes metrics such as website traffic, time on site, and email newsletter sign-ups.

2. Use Analytics Tools: Use analytics tools like Google Analytics to track your website traffic and behavior. It helps you understand which pages and posts are most popular, where your traffic comes from, and how are users engaging with your content.

3. Perform A/B Testing: Test different headlines, images, and calls to action on your blog or site to optimize your content for maximum engagement and conversions.

4. Evaluate ROI: Evaluate your content strategy’s return on investment (ROI) by tracking your costs and measuring your results. Depending on your goal (increase website traffic, generate leads, boost conversions, or enhance your brand awareness) assign a proper value for said goal and track its performance.  

These steps and the overall monitoring and analysis help you determine what is working and what is not, and optimize your content for better results.

Wrapping up

There you have it, all laid out. Developing a proper WordPress content strategy is essential for small businesses, freelancers, and developers who want to create compelling blog posts and pages that resonate with their target audience and drive results. It requires careful research, planning, and execution. With the right approach and knowledge of what you need to do, you too can create compelling content that resonates with your audience, generates leads, and sets you apart from the competition. So, if you:

·   Define your target audience

·   Conduct keyword research

·   Create a content plan

·   Produce relevant content

·   Define content distribution and promotion

·   Keep track of what’s working and what’s not

There’s no way you won’t succeed in reaching and engaging your target audience, converting them into your customers and clients.

And be sure to let us know how this article helps in achieving those goals, ok?